When some people mention "The Summer of Love" in 1967, they may think of drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll. But to Salem poster collector Gary Westfjord, who is guest curator of a new Bush Barn Art Center exhibit, the era was about something deeper and more profound. "My personal take on at as a young man was that all things were possible," said Westfjord, who grew up in Oakland, Calif.
, and lived in San Francisco from 1968 to 1971. The posters he started collecting at the time are part of "American Music Posters 1935-2007," now at Bush Barn Art Center's A.N.
Bush Gallery, and form a Hallie Ford Museum of Art exhibit, "When 6 Was 9: Rock Posters from San Francisco, 1966-71." Westfjord has 25 posters at Bush Barn and 55 at the Hallie Ford; most are being shown for the first time here. Westfjord, who heads the art department at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, was an athlete, a wrestler and coach, at the time of the Summer of Love but was a big music fan from the age of 6.
His mother was a country-western singer. Westfjord connected with both the art, music and ideology of freedom and change. "I would make a strong case that we carried through with many of those ideas and ideals," Westfjord said.
"I still think we were, in a collective sense, in a time when change was possible." He went on to teach art for 23 years at Oregon State Penitentiary, before going to the community college five years ago. Westfjord is a painter, currently focusing on figurative paintings of Olympic wrestlers.
He started collecting posters in the 1960s, paying only $3 each for two of the iconic posters at the Hallie Ford -- one for the Monterrey Pop concert and the other a Grateful Dead poster with a skeleton and roses -- now worth thousands of dollars each. By the time Westfjord left San Francisco, he already had 35 posters, but has continued collecting, recently buying a vintage Aretha Franklin and James Brown posters, showing at Bush Barn. Among the artists featured are Santana, Big Brother and the Holding Company, It's a Beautiful Day and Jefferson Airplane.
Although posters still are collectible, for as little as $30 to $75, Westfjord said many in his 80-poster collection he could no longer afford. Some go for up to $11,000. "I collected them just because I knew they were special and beautiful and also because they were emblematic of the time and will stand the test of time," he said.
There are different levels of appreciation, including nostalgia, the music being promoted and the visual beauty of the psychedelic art style, which required the viewer to stop, slow down and decipher the lettering. "These really work," said Paula Booth, galleries curator for Bush Barn. "They really stop the viewer.
" There is another, richer level, however, Westfjord said. "I guess the next level has to do with the content of the work," he said. "They do have to do with who we are, the diversity.
"Like any good works of art, these works are about us, who we are." The Bush Barn show, unlike the more focused Hallie Ford show, covers more than 70 years. Included are 14 posters from the Lebanon area's Cottonwoods Ballroom, a major music venue that encompassed early rock, country and big band music from 1930 through the 1961, as well as a section of the ballroom's famous maple hardwood floor.
The posters are even newly framed with wood from the floor. This part of the exhibit is courtesy of Jim Creighton of Albany, who has made himself unofficial historian of the ballroom, which ended its days as a music venue in 1961 and saw life as a trading post, music club, disco and bingo hall before being torn down in 1995. Creighton's posters, as well as a scrapbook of old newspaper ads, are a who's-who of music history, with names including Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bobby Darin, Bob Crosby, Bob Wills His Texas Playboys, Harry James, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and even Ole Rasmussen His Nebraska Cornhuskers.
These are "boxing style," generic posters with a space at the top for the local venue to be added. In the 1930s, a time when the Ku Klux Klan still was active in Oregon, major black entertainers held court at the ballroom, though they never stayed the night in the area. Even though alcohol wasn't served inside, people brought their own liquor and the parking lot could be as wild as the hall itself.
"I heard about it all my life, just being in the area, and its wildness," Creighton said, although he never visited it. Often called "The Home of the Hits," the ballroom was on Highway 20 between Albany and Lebanon. Creighton acquired his posters from people connected with the ballroom and has collected history wherever he could find it; Creighton hopes to get more history from visitors to the exhibit.
"If I hadn't done this, people would have had no idea what happened there," he said. "It's not going to be forgotten. It'll be remembered for what it was.
" The Bush Barn exhibit of 56 posters includes two 1960s era posters for Northwest venues donated by Kip Close of Salem's Ranch Records and examples of vintage 1960s clothing presented by Sam Hart of the Lil' Gypsy Boutique and Costumes in Salem. For more posters, the downstairs Focus Gallery has "Contemporary Rock Posters from Voodoocatbox," 15 silkscreen posters created by Gary Houston of Portland, whose business is Voodoocatbox. Houston has another 15 posters in the A.
N. His posters present such artists as portray such artists as BB King, Elvis Costello, Phil Lesh and Los Lobos. Westfjord, Creighton, Houston and Wolfgangsvault.
com (the collection of the late promoter Bill Graham) have donated six posters which are being raffled as part of the exhibit, with the proceeds benefiting the Salem YWCA and the Salem Art Association. Those posters, as well as six posters designed by Chemeketa Community College graphic design students, are in the downstairs Camas Gallery. rcowan@StatesmanJournal.
com or (503) 399-6728 When some people mention "The Summer of Love" in 1967, they may think of drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll.
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